Yesterday we rolled out an update which we have been working hard on for last few months. Along with working on new features we knew it was very important to make sure everything worked well for the final release of Internet Explorer 9 (which just came out a couple days ago). Additionally, we know that load speed and performance of your sites is of the utmost priority. With all that in mind we structured a plan of action to re-write and re-structure almost every aspect of the platform to optimize performance, decrease load time and have great compatibility with all modern browsers (including the very latest).

We are pleased to inform you that we have accomplished our goals. In our side-by-side speed test comparisons, the updated Spruz platform loads pages as much as twice as fast as before the update! Also, the Spruz platform is now completely compatible with the new IE browser and should work great in the new Firefox browser when it comes out in a couple months. During this process, we went through all our code written over the last 5 years to optimize and bring everything current with the latest technologies in mind. This opens the door for new and exciting future development.

We also recently completed a new Content Template section for deeper site customization: Email Templates. Now you can customize each of the email types that your site sends out to members. You can fully tailor each one with full HTML support to fit the needs of your site.

Note: This update required many resource files to be updated. Even though we have taken all possible measures to try to force your browser to get the latest version of the updated files some browsers may ignore that. In this case, you may expirence problems or errors on your site. The solution is to clear your cache and restart your browser to correct your issues.

As with any major update, there may be a bug or two which we missed. If you encounter any problems, please let us know in a support request and we will address it.

Are you looking for a position where you can make a difference? Spruz is has opened several positions for community managers. This is a work at home position with a base pay plus commission pay structure.

Responsibilities will include;

Operating our Live Chat service to help site owners with sales, how-to, and support related issues.

Moderating our Owners Community and helping site administrations with questions, problems and advise

Contributing to our Help and Knowledge base systems.

Position Requirements

You must;

already be familiar with using Spruz and have a Spruz powered website

have a reliable computer and high speed internet connection

be able to install our live chat client on your personal computer

be over 18 years of age and be a legal resident of the US or Canada

have a quite home environment that will allow you to focus on the job at hand during your scheduled hours.

Compensation
This is a contract position, while you will be a representative of Spruz, you will in effect be self employed and handle your own tax and income liabilities.

Hourly pay starts at $7.00/hr + commission

Advancement Opportunities

To Apply

Email jobs@spruz.com and include your resume, good contact information with best times to reach you, your availability, your Spruz website account email address and other information that you feel will help us understand how well you will fit within this position.

We hope everyone is having a great new year so far! Our team has been busy on new platform features and improvements that you all will be able to enjoy really soon.

As mentioned in one of our past blog posts here on our Owners' Community we planned to announce changes to our plan structure shortly into the new year. Effective today we have made the following adjustments to our premium plans and some minor adjustments on our Free Service.

New Custom Scripting Restrictions on all current and future free websites. If you have a Free website you may no longer use custom scripting (JavaScript). While we know many of you may rely on our platforms friendliness to scripting it is something that is now only allowed when you upgrade. The reason behind this was too many people are abusing our free offering by creating spam sites, using us only for SEO and so on. This activity effects everyone, thus we felt it was best action we could take and a good alternative over ending our free website offering.

Changes to our premium plan structure:

First, if you are already a upgraded client these changes will not effect you. These changes are only in effect for new upgrade or plan changes.

In order to simplify our plans we have renamed all plans, and they include the following changes:

Spruz Basic, our $9.95/mo plan no longer includes the Ad Manager and Member Subscription Module.

Spruz Plus, our $19.95/mo plan includes the Ad Manager

and Spruz Pro our $49.95/mo plan includes the Ad Manager and Video uploading.

Our member subscription module is now a $10/mo addition on all plans. Video uploading can no longer be added to any plan and is only included with our Spruz Pro plan.

We have also eliminated our $100/mo Enterprise support plan and instead offer our Expert Access where you can purchase blocks of time to spend with one of our very knowledgeable Spruz platform developers. Your time block can be used on anything from learning more about the Spruz platform to strategy on how to build a money making website with Spruz. Click here to order or learn more

We do want to extend a promotional 10% discount to everyone. You can use this you are planning on upgrading or changing your plan.

The code is: cd-5

Enter the above code into the promo code box on our upgrade page. At the end of your order a 10% additional discount will be applied. Save big by ordering yearly for a maximum discount. The code will expire at the end of this month.

We want to thank everyone in advance for their understanding on these changes.

Well the holidays are upon us, a time to spend with your family and friends. This year has been the best ever for Spruz with an overall growth rate of 40% over last year and we have you, our users to thank for that!

We have tons of cool new features, improvements and changes right now in development for release early 2011. Here is a brief list of what we are activitly working on at this time;

Editing of the Blog and Wiki System Templates with other systems to follow - This is a feature that really allows you to change the functionality of these features to change naming, form field names, and the way posts are drawn on the page.

New Content Template features for System Text and Email Templates.

Expanded SPL/SPI documentation, plus completion of our API. Opening our platform up for 3rd party development is a big goal for early 2011

New settings for comment boxes - To include setting like if images and HTML can be used or not.

Member Points and Gifting System - This will be a premium feature and will allow you to configure points to award members for different actions on your website. Then they can spend their points in a configurable gift store.

Blog improvements to include: New save as draft and post scheduling to name just 2 of the many new improvements to this system.

Member Activity feed options to control what information shows on the activity feed. (Status, Group Messages, Etc)

But things don't stop there, we have tons of items on our to do list, but we need your help to prioritize it, tell us what is a features and improvements are a priority to you by taking a moment to review what features and changes our members have posted about in our Idea Room forum and post your support or post your own idea if you don't see it mentioned!

Holiday Hours

For us the Christmas Holiday is a time for our staff to spend with family and friends as well. We will have minimal support and staff starting from December 23rd until January 2nd when our offices return to normal operating conditions. We will only answer critical issues during this time, thus we encourage you to post how-to related questions on here on owners community and help each other out a little more this time of year.

Once again, THANK YOU ALL for a great year and have a very Merry Christmas! We look forward to serving you in all 2011!

We completed a few updates here on our Owners' Community to make it easier for you to connect with our community of website creators, access support requests, and information in our knowledge base.

Some changes you may notice include;

A brand new look! We have elected for a left side navigation that mimics the navigation located in your site settings areas. By using this layout we can set longer labels for navigation links, making it easier for new and old users alike to find information easier.

Site adapts to your screen resolution, this is great for those of you on higher then 1024X728 resolutions as you can now see more on screen then you could before.

We have added several new links to give quick access to Community Activity, Different Forum Areas, Knowledge Base, and Support Tickets.

The Support button on the site Management Bar has been changed to Help and directs to the owners community while still keeping your site in management mode.

Over the next few months we will be working hard to offer more how-to guides and videos on using your Spruz powered website. your ability to access help and other resources.